Reunion Galore

Ok so yesterday was entertaining. I skipped an assembly to go by cloth in the morning. That was epic fun. Actually it was cloth and the miscellaneous arts and crafts stuff. Wandering streets in HK is fun, well as long as you have someone to wander with right? lol

Well did some of that and then headed back to work. Went out for lunch at a floating restaurant. Good thing they weren't serving. They would've seen food if that was the case. lol It was one of the "boss"'s last day with us so we went out to celebrate. Half way through I had a really upsetting phone call over from Toronto from Kitty. She mentioned to me that Sichuan had another earthquake. Though she didn't know any details, I basically lost my appetite after that call. I couldn't believe what I heard and I just hoped nothing went wrong for those kids we stayed with.

I had a reassured talk with the table that everything was ok. Uncle Victor was in Sichuan and just came back today. He was over there when the earthquake happened but they said that it wasn't bad. The houses that they were living in, like portables in Calgary, were collapsing because you could tell that they weren't built to sustain another disaster. The quake only measured 5.2 and yet still caused a lot of damage. It got me thinking again of how privileged I am to live in Canada. All I could do was pray for the safety of everyone over there.

Well, that was an entertaining lunch. Went back to work and spent the next 4 hours painting. It was a little fun but I had forgotten to go change my shirt and pants. Now my white shirt and white plaid shorts are stained with blue. GREAT. And the shorts were my FAVE!!!! sigh, oh well. My fault for forgetting.

Left work at 6 to go find ear buds. One of my buds popped out and I lost the cushion for it so I went out to search for replacements. Found some so I bought it and headed to Mong Kok to meet up with my friends back from 07. And BOY did they all change. Well all but B and Ellen haha. I saw them before so it was ok but everyone else changed. Could hardly recognize them.


Had a funky time wandering the streets for a place to eat and it was so cool just to catch up with everyone. Went to go take sticky pics lol. Best past time ever!!!

Went to go shoot some arcade hoops later. Ended up losing a ring that the Sichuan girls gave me but I ended up with a different ring on the same finger...weird. Anyways, it wasn't the ring I was wearing before and it was most definitely a size smaller. I had no idea how it ended up on my finger nor do I remember losing that other ring. Well, it doesn't matter now because I'm going to go search for it in the streets of Mong Kok and buy myself another one. Hopefully I can find a similar one cuz it really was a cool gift from the students.

Ocean Park Review

Ok, I have to admit I was most definitely looking forward to going to the everyday talk-about of Ocean Park. I was all psyched out for it. The drive there was a real good adventure. Getting lost twice but still ended up getting there in less than 40 min. Supposed to take us 29 min and considering that HK has no u-turns, we did pretty well. Well, after a few questions to laughing taxi-drivers and confused gas-station attendants, we arrived with joy and excitement.

It was PACKED! Ok, for a monday, its not supposed to be packed but apparently all the school kids had the day off and spent the day there... Fantastic. Me in a large park surrounded by lots of people and screaming kids. Can anyone see what's gonna happen next? Well, I'm claustrophobic and this was alright. Actually it was considered "few" apparently to everyone so I guess I can be happy for that.

We spent roughly 3 hours there looking animals, fish and taking a ride or two. 3 hours for those at home is very little to spend. Why so little? The Aunt that drove me and her kids basically went to drive us there. She was very considerate and wanted to see us have fun. I on the other hand felt really bad because she had to drive in HK (which I recommend you never do unless you know where you are going) and she didn't really participate. It was nice of her to join us though but she didn't go on rides or anything. So i kinda felt really bad.

So we probably spent 1.5 hours looking at Pandas, fish, jellyfish, turtles, red pandas and such. Just over an hour waiting in line and 10 min eating lunch. lol That was my Ocean Park experience. Nonetheless, I can say that it was pretty cool. The park itself was initially designed for a visit once every 2 years and i think it was intended for kids up to age 16. It really wasn't my cup-o-tea but it was still fun since it was my first time.

Oh, and I literally saw the largest eel ever. This guy was sooo big it creeped me out. He was a good 30inch in diameter and was i think 30ft long. GROSS. I'm glad it wasn't moving but it was SOO big I couldn't believe me eyes. There was also another Huge manta ray, wing span of about 10ft and about 17 ft long. HUGE!!!!!!!

Uber Fail!

Ok. Sunday morning was spectacular but there were early signs of problems.
I, being the meteorologist that I am, studied the cloud formations and the weather while in my office. I have to say, I was pretty accurate but I didn't believe myself so I didn't take the warning very seriously. I hypothesized that it would be around 27 degrees C with light wind and really bad rain.

Had I known that I would be 80% correct, I would've been prepared, but obviously I didn't. I set out to a district called "Yau Ma Day" which is about a 20min subway ride from where I live. In total, I arrived at that area around 1120. I had set out at 10:45. On my arrival and exit of the subway station, I was wondering why about 30 people were crammed at the bottom of the stairs. It was POURING rain, like i predicted. Poured so badly that the stairs were flooding down like crazy (quite a site really).

Ok, I knew that it was going to rain and I did bring an umbrella with me that I had bought earlier on in the month. I didn't however, bring my rain jacket. Let's just say, The jacket would have kept me drier than the umbrella because the umbrella did absolutely nothing, literally. It had the radius of about 1.5 feet. For those that know me, I'm a skinny guy, and 3 feet does not cover very much especially if you have a backpack on. So I'm walking around Yau Ma Day thinking that I can still shop or something, but I had totally forgot that this district, the cheap stuff is all in open markets. DUR.... Yeah, obviously they would be closed.

So I spent about 10 min walking in the rain with a tiny umbrella that covered absolutely nothing. Fantastic. I went back to the subway station 2lbs heavier. My jeans had literally soaked so much water that the bottom half of them were carrying about 2lbs of water. FANTASTIC. I was planning to not go home because it would be time consuming and a waste of money to go and change and come back out for church, so I decided to stay around the area.

I went out to the Tsim Sha Tsui district to seek better shelter and hopefully something for me to do and I was in some slight luck. I was looking for a music store so I could find some nifty chinese piano music and particularly 1 song. I spent the next 2 hours looking for it and I FINALLY found it, after searching through every single book and shelf since I can't read chinese and the people there weren't very helpful.

I went to BK for lunch around 130 and you seriously have NO IDEA what service is until you've been here. 20 employees outside the counter or behind excluding the chefs said, "hello, welcome to Burger King" in a lovely asian accent. hehe
3 greeters, 3 managers, 2 assistant managers, 3 cleaners, 9 counter people. How on earth do they fit 9 people behind a counter with only 3 tills??? That's SOO crowded. oh, the best part is, if your burger is not ready in 10 secs, they make u sit down and they bring you the burger. Its hilarious!!! AND you don't throw away your stuff. You just leave and they pick it up after you. Puts a whole new meaning to 'service with a smile', except they're all hiding behind a mask haha.

Well So I set off looking for dvds and spent 30 min looking and I headed out to Central cuz i got bored and my church was over there. Doors didn't open so I scoured the city and I noticed a lot of telephone stores. :D I chose to go take a look at the cells because I was thinking of buying a new one, but I'm undecided. Anyways, found the phone I wanted to get. LG Arena. COOL!!! but its SOO expensive. 3280HKD which is approximately ~500CDN. THATS GROSS! I wouldn't pay that much for a phone, but it is touch and very durable. It's like an Iphone but slimmer, lighter and it comes with apps lol. Well it's a decision that I still have a month to make and I may or may not buy it.

Anyways church was hilarious and went out to Tsim Sha Tsui after at 8 to watch the 'spectacular' light show. (Videos coming). It sucked compared to 2 years ago lol. Walked the Avenue of Stars and saw Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Chow Yun Fat and other people.

Pretty much sums up my day. EPIC!
I hope it doesn't rain too much tomorrow. Excited to go to Ocean Park!! WEEE